GUEST: Well, my son and his buddies liked to collect baseball cards. And I was always driving them, 'cause they were too young to drive anyplace. And one of the places nearby had a special event that day, and they said, "Put your name in a, in a slip and stick it in the box, and we'll have some drawings." And lo and behold, I won this.
APPRAISER: Did you have to pay to enter the drawing?
GUEST: Nope, all I had to do was put my name on a piece of paper and drop it in the box. When I won, they called and said, "You got the jersey."
APPRAISER: Cool. (chuckles) Did they tell you anything else about the jersey at the time?
GUEST: Nope.
APPRAISER: Really?
GUEST: They said they thought it was probably worth about a couple hundred dollars, but that's all they said.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: They just said, "Enjoy."
APPRAISER: Excellent.
GUEST: And I says, "Well, thank you." (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Sure. The good news is, is that all of the labels and all of the stitching
are spot-on for what it should be.
GUEST: All right.
APPRAISER: Okay, so let's look at the label at the top.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: It says "Jackson."
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: So we know it's Reggie Jackson.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: We know it was issued to him and worn. We have all this great wear, including a couple of stains here at the bottom.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: That's nice. We like game-worn jerseys. We like people's dirty laundry.
GUEST: Of course.
APPRAISER: Of course.
GUEST: Shows it was really used.
APPRAISER: "80, set 1" tells us that it dates to 1980.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: So we have the New York Yankees insignia. We have Reggie Jackson and his number 44, signed. We also have the Wilson tag with his size.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And everything seems to be just perfect. His number 44 is
on the reverse, as well.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So we have no doubt that this is a 1980 Reggie Jackson New York Yankees game-worn jersey.
GUEST: All right, fantastic.
APPRAISER: What also tells us is that it's 1980 is the black band, the black stripe
on the left arm. That was in memorance of Thurman Munson.
GUEST: Oh!
APPRAISER: Thurman Munson was a teammate-- yes.
GUEST: Right, okay.
APPRAISER: And he was tragically killed in a small plane crash the year before, in '79. What happened in 1980? Well, the Yankees didn't win the World Series, but Reggie Jackson had a great year. He won the Silver Slugger Award. He was the American League home run leader that year, he hit 41 home runs. And when people are collecting things, in the connoisseurship of good, better, best, this is pretty good.
GUEST: All right.
APPRAISER: So we looked at what set number two sold for. And, um, set number two actually sold at auction for just over $5,000 in 2012.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: Okay?
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: So today, an auction estimate for this jersey would be $8,000 to $12,000.
GUEST: Oh, my gosh. (laughing) That's amazing. (chuckles) Wow.
APPRAISER: Yes. Do you know why he was number 44? He was, like, "I'd like number 44 because I want to pay homage to Hank Aaron."
